zlacker

>>mouse_+(OP)
Back in the days of blaster, if you were connected to a network with infected machines or had a public IP address because you were connected straight into your cable modem, you would get infected in the windows installer before it finished installing. Nowadays, everything is behind NAT and there aren't any infected Windows XP machines left on your local network, so that's not a problem anymore.

>>jmgao+rb4
For some reason whenever somebody suggests that NAT might have security benefits, there is usually some hysterical screeching about how that isn't true. Often seen in IPv6 discussions.

>>lupusr+cd4
I think the usual security objection is that if the NAT router receives a packet from the outside, with its destination set to a local address, the router will just let it through, in the absence of a firewall.

But as far as I can tell, that's only relevant for an attacker who can MITM the connection between the local router and the next ISP router, since clearly the ISP wouldn't know who to forward the local address to. I'd think it isn't within the threat model of the "typical internet user" who'd be running such a poorly-configured network.